Here I want to share some insights I gained while leveling up in FFXIV. These tips will help you level up faster and make the most of your game time.

Preferred Worlds

The first thing to consider when upgrading in FFXIV is your server choice. Many servers with fewer players online offer a significant advantage to players looking to level up quickly. These are often called Preferred Worlds and give you an additional 100% XP boost.

To select a Preferred World, you need to first create a new character until you are faced with the world selection window. An asterisk next to the server name indicates it is a Preferred World. You’ll see an icon in the upper right corner of the screen that says “The Road to 80,” which means the XP boost is active.

Level Multiple Jobs Simultaneously

After selecting a server, we can grade multiple jobs at the same time. Classes in FFXIV are similar to classes in other MMOs. This means that you are not stuck in one class, you can switch between them as needed. This comes in handy whenever you need or want to access the lower level areas.

These areas don’t give you much XP for your higher-level work. But for lower-level jobs, they do. What’s more is that you can easily save gear sets so you don’t have to keep changing gear when you change jobs.

This is a great way to level up multiple classes at once and experiment with different play styles. Because some classes are more suitable for single player games, while others are good at team content.

Duty Roulette

Plus, taking Duty Roulette is another great way to level up. Duty Roulette is a series of dungeon and trial quests you can complete daily for rewarding XP. This is especially useful if you are upgrading a healer or tank. Because we always need these classes in group content.

Best of all, you can queue for Duty Roulette individually. And you’ll be matched with other players, so you don’t have to worry about not finding your party. The people who play these dungeons are friendly and chatty. So it’s also a great way to meet new people and make connections.

Palace Of The Dead

If dungeons are your thing, challenging Palace of the Dead is also a smart option for a quick level up. This multi-level dungeon allows players to enter alone or with a team, and successfully killing monsters in the dungeon will also drop rich FFXIV Gil. But the more progress you make, the dungeon gets progressively more difficult.

Before entering Palace of the Dead, players must first complete a short quest called “The House That Death Built.” We can do this quest in New Gridania.

Complete Hunting Log

Another great way to level up is to complete Hunting Log. Because it gives you more XP, and can be done as you venture from point A to point B. They’re a great way to level up while exploring the game world.

Hunting Log is a set of tasks you can perform at each level of scope. These tasks involve killing a certain number of monsters. After completing these tasks, it will reward you with XP and FFXIV Gil.

Hunting Log will also be relevant to your current job. This means that each class has its own Hunting Log. Whenever you kill a specific monster of a specific class, be sure to check Hunting Log for other similar classes. Because they may also need to kill the same monsters.

Main Scenario Quests & Job Quests

Last but not least, don’t forget to complete your Main Scenario Quests and Job Quests. Completing Main Scenario Quests not only earns you valuable XP, it also rewards you with gear and food that boost your stats and increase your XP gain.

Also, completing your Job Quests will grant your character new abilities. And allows you to focus on your job at level 30, transforming it into a more powerful, advanced version. So, make sure to prioritize these tasks as they will help you a lot on your leveling journey.

After playing, please don’t forget to exit at the designated Resting Area. By logging out in one of these areas, you will begin building a rest buff. This buff increases your XP buff when you log back in.

The longer you log out, the longer the buff lasts, but there is also a limit to the buff duration. Most cities and houses with special icons are Resting Areas. You’ll know you’re in it when you see a half-moon icon next to your XP bar. Then you can safely exit and sit back and relax.

There are many other ways to increase XP and level up, but I’ve found these to be the most efficient. Hope this helps you.

I’m going to teach you how to level up in Island Sanctuary, including some mistakes to avoid.

If you’re just starting Island Sanctuary, it’s probably because you’ve heard or even seen of some of the really cool rewards. You can get like mounts, minions, Glamours, Furnishing, dyes and Materia. Or maybe you heard about the fact that you can actually decorate your Island Sanctuary with outdoor furnishings. It’s pretty cool, right?

Don’t Use Your Cowries

At lower levels, you’ll receive a few thousand Cowries by completing the quest given to you by the Felicitous Furball. You must not use these Cowries.

These are given to you purposefully, as you will need them to pay the Mammoths to clear other areas of the island so that you can build Workshops and Granaries. Using these Cowries will absolutely stall your progress and make things a lot harder for you.

Quests

With this quests warning aside, let’s talk about how you can actually gain exp and rank up.

At lower levels, you will get the most exp from doing any quests that pop up on the island. These will usually come from Felicitous Furball or mamas, asking if you want a clear part of the island.

Crafting Tools & Restraints

Usually, to clear a section of the island, you need to craft tools. You will also get exp for crafting the tools.

In fact, you get exp the first time you craft anything, so look through that log and see if there’s anything else you could craft.

You’ll also get a small amount of exp for repeatable crafts, like Restraints. So, if you happen to have any extra masks that you don’t need for the workshop, craft away.

Also Read: What Should You Do While Waiting For Queue To Pop In FFXIV? - 10 Tips

Building & Renovating Buildings

At any rank, you will gain exp by building new Granaries, Workshops, or Landmarks. Of course, the spots for these are limited, so you can only build so many.

You will also get exp for renovating the Workshops and Granaries. The max level you can renovate them to is four. Make sure to do this not just for the exp but also for the bonus in rewards. For example, each renovation of the Workshop will increase the Workshop Cowries output.

Setting The Workshop

Speaking of the Workshop, you can also get exp from making stuff in there. So, you should be setting your Workshop every week.

For those who are happy with leveling up casually or slowly, once you’ve done all the quests and renovated all your buildings, the Workshop is pretty much the only passive way to level.

Gathering

For those that want to level up a bit faster or who made the mistake, I mentioned earlier of using up all your Cowries. Unfortunately, all that’s really left for you to do is just gather things on the island.

Now, the most optimal way to do this would either be to gather in an area where you don’t have to run very far, such as on the top of the mountain if you’re past rank 10 and have unlocked flying. Or, if you’re below 10, this spot along the stream is also good.

Macro For Gathering

There is actually a macro you can use that will target and auto run you to the nearest Gathering mode.

Gathering Macro:

/merror off

/targetnpc

/lockon on

/automove on

Once it does that, you need to hit the confirm button, which on the keyboard is defaulted to the number pad to zero. I like to set the macro to 1 and the confirm button to two, so I can just hit one and two and watch something on my second monitor while I do this. This macro works best if you can gather on top of the mountain since it’ll keep you in your small circle.

But I don’t see why you couldn’t use it elsewhere if you really wanted to. Just make sure to look at your screen every now and then to prevent your character from getting stuck. And while this method of gathering will level you up, unfortunately, it’s not going to be able to get you the Cowries that you need to pay the Mammoths. You will have to just be working on your Workshop in order to get those. This is why it’s a really big deal and why you should not spend your Cowries until you have cleared some of those areas that need to be cleared and have Cowries in excess.

Gathering Heavily Used Items

But back to gathering, something else to consider would be to gather some of the items. Otherwise, you need to spend a lot of FFXIV Gil.

You will need a lot of for your Workshop, such as Island Laver, Island Sap, Island Cotton Bolls, Island Sugarcane and Island Tinsand. Those are the items I find myself running out of the most.

Even though gathering these is not the most optimal way to gain exp because they’re more spread out, doing so will still give you exp and it will be helpful to you later. It’s kind of like killing two birds with one stone.

Gathering Crops & Leavings

It’s also worth noting that you can get exp from gathering your crops and gathering the leavings from any animals you have. It’s 120 exp per crop and 50 exp per animal. When these are automated by the Mammoths, they don’t give any exp at all. So, just be aware of that.

Personally, I find this amount to be so negligible that it isn’t really worth the extra effort you have to put into the island. Because this means, of course, feeding the animals and watering the crops yourself. But it’s up to you whether you want to do this for a little extra exp or not.

Troubleshooting

Finally, I want to share a couple of troubleshooting items because I remember them happening to me.

First of all, you have to craft the tools in the crafting log before you’ll be able to take new quests. If they’re showing up red, that could be why.

Another reason they might be read, and this was the most confusing for me, is because you’re not actually a high enough rank to take them. I remember having quests I couldn’t do and I had no idea why because I crafted all my tools and did anything else the Felicitous Furball told me to do, but nothing unlocked the quest.

Once I ranked up to the appropriate level, the quest would unlock. I don’t know if they’ve patched this or not. But if you see a red quest and it doesn’t change color even after you’ve crafted the most recent set of available tools, you probably need to level up.

Welcome to my quick guide about leveling in Final Fantasy 14. But regardless of each best method of leveling, variety is key and not getting bored while leveling. All jobs in particular are the way to go and the absolute first rule, which means not leveling because you’re lacking the motivation is always worse than leveling unoptimally. 

Leveling Bonuses

First of all, let’s talk about leveling bonuses that are a massive boost to your overall leveling speed. The more you have, the faster you go. 

The first and biggest bonus is a boosted server bonus. So, if you’re not concerned about starting on one particular server or data center where nearly each data center offers at least one boosted server, this bonus is massive. When you use it, basically all leveling grinds are easy and fast. And, you won’t run into any leveling block or caps from the main scenario quest.

The second biggest boost is received upon having your main job or any job or class at least one level ahead of the job or class you’re going to level, which is kinda relevant for all job leveling only. But for that case, leading to a massive 100 so-called Armory Bonus for all exp rewards possible. This bonus is reduced to 50 later, but works as a significant way to increase leveling speed. Because you’re lacking the main scenario quest experience points. 

So, if you want to change your main job later because you don’t like the first choice you made, Square Enix got you covered with this bonus as well as all the jobs you level in consecution to the first. If you still have access to any pre-order earrings, definitely use those as well as they boost your exp gain in some stats, too.

Apart from that, you can join a free company with access to free company actions like Heat of Battle. That will increase your killing exp gains by up to 15% as well or you could let your Squadron do missions to receive Squadron Battle Manuals that don’t stack with the free company buff but are a solid 20 uplift.

When you already have reached level 15 with any fighting class or job, you could also take part in the Hall of the Novice feature that you can enter by talking to an NPC next to an Innkeeper in major cities that will let you participate in a series of tries for beginners where you learn all the games basics. But we are here for the rewards, featuring the brand new ring that will grant you another 30% kill exp bonus until level 30, but also some useful stats to push your overall power level.

If you’re blessed with lots of friends starting Final Fantasy 14, you can recruit them to gain access to the Friendship Circlet. But you should not spend too much time on this item as the process inside the mock station to actually get it could take you longer than leveling these 25 levels.

But of course, if you’re planning to level more jobs, go for it.

And though it may sound gimmicky, don’t underestimate the basic three percent buff to kill exp received out of any food. You can get just buy out a 99 stack of boiled eggs by using your FFXIV Gil and you can basically have 3% more exp all the time.

Rested Bonus. While this grants an astonishing 50 boost to exp’s earned, you will eat this up in no time but still being received upon not playing the game. You can always get a slight push by sticking with a healthy sleeping schedule and continue leveling on another day. Just be AFK in Limsa or leave the game in city areas and this will fail automatically.

Levels 1-20

For 1 to 20, if you’re on your first character, keep pushing the main scenario quest. It will have you covered under till you reach endgame as long as you do the one or the other side activity.

For all jobs due to the Armory Exp Bonus, just go out into the field and do your Hunting Log targets, which will bring you to level 20 very quickly and, if you see a Fate on the way to that as well.

As soon as you’re granted access to dungeons, make sure to hit the ‘Q’ button and keep grinding dungeons up until you reach level 61 where a new method comes into play.

In the meantime, just keep doing Fates, levequests, and progress further with your Hunting Log, whose leveling benefits decrease with higher levels. If you already unlocked Squadron Command Missions, just keep grinding these instead, as they can be massively empowered in time of using them on missions and they deal tons of damage, sometimes more than players.

But remember, unlocking your squad takes a while and a good amount of invested play time. As an alternative, you can also go for Palace of the Dead. But the more leveling bonuses you have, the better are dungeons. 

Levels 26-36

For levels 26 to 36, there’s a very special levequest called Adamantoise Tears in Camp Tranquil.

Check this out if you have Levequest allowances to spare as this is a massive boost to your leveling speed on this level range or remember to do your job quest at the level you’re getting them. Because you need to complete those anyway later on and why giving away free exp, right? 

Stormblood Levels 

Coming to 61, a new version of Palace of the Dead will be available. That is called Heaven-on-High.

While technically similar, it offers more experience points than some other differences and you should try it out for a good alternative to Stormblood Dungeons. 

Also Read: What Should You Do While Waiting For Queue To Pop In FFXIV? - 10 Tips

Shadowbringers Levels

On 71, reach the Shadowbringers leveling range. I highly recommend throwing these tribe dailies into the mix as they are done in about 3 minutes and provide tons of exp on top.

You could start those in Stormblood already. But Pixies are much faster than my opinion in the same way as the Endwalker Beast Tribes quests are. Also, the Bozjan Southern Front will be introduced for those having unlocked the Shadowbringers relic content or plan to get the relic in the process. This being a very nice leveling method if you know how to handle encounters in there. 

Dungeons are still the way to go here and the new trust parties are nice. But I do recommend grinding down Fates or Overworld content while just being cute up for dungeons normally. Just use Trust, if ‘Q’ times are miserable.

Endwalker Levels

In the Endwalker leveling ranges, the formula doesn’t change dungeons are top priority.

But I highly advise doing the Beast Tribes in the process. And as Fates are much more profitable than before, just grind those during queue times as they also did enhance the rewards for the Fates, which means they have a little of endgame relevance to incentivize endgame players to do them with you.

Dailies & Weeklies

Last but absolutely not least, your weekly and daily stuff.

Do everything inside your Duty Roulette, especially the leveling and Alliance rate as well as MSQ roulette, once you have them unlocked. 

My rule of thumb is to do them every time you feel waiting times are too long or the dungeon you have on your exact level is too boring or just too tough to grind it comfortably. 

Weekly bonuses are even more important as you can literally level without actively doing anything except endgame content, especially when grabbing the Wondrous Tails from Khloe Aliapoh.